“Yeah.” His voice hardens, heat rising around him in visible waves. “I understand duty. I understand what it feels like to fail someone you’d die for. But I also understand that beating yourself to death over it doesn’t change what happened. It makes you sloppy, distracted, and when the next threat comes… and it will come, brother… you’ll be too busy drowning in guilt to do your job.”
I want to argue.
I want to tell him he doesn’t get it, that he can’t possibly understand the weight of a bloodline oath that stretches back to creation itself.
But he’s not entirely mistaken.
I have been sloppy.
Distracted.
Pulling away from the pack, from the club, from the family I helped build. Isolating myself, a wounded animal licking its injuries in the dark.
And Crave has noticed.
I’ve seen it in the way he watches me during church, concern flickering behind those silver eyes. I’ve felt it through our bond, his confusion, his worry, the way he reaches for me across the connection and finds walls I’ve never put up before.
He doesn’t understand why I’m shutting him out. He doesn’t realize it’s because looking at him, being near him, feeling his presence reminds me of how close I came to losing him. And how utterly, completely useless I was to stop it.
Before I can respond to Scorch, before I can figure out what the hell to say, an alarm shatters the quiet.
Not the gentle chime of a motion sensor.
A full-blown, blaring emergency alert that makes every supernatural instinct I have snap to attention.
Perimeter breach.
Scorch’s cigarette hits the ground as we both move, muscle memory taking over. I shift mid-stride, not fully, just enough to let my senses sharpen to lycan precision. My eyes flash luminous blue, and my nails extend into claws. The beast rises to the surface, eager, ready, hungry for a threat it canactuallyfight.
The clubhouse explodes with activity. Doors slam open, boots hit pavement, and within seconds, the whole family is mobilized. Hades, with his twin blades already drawn, Hex with his tablet glowing in one hand and a pistol in the other, Dread’s fear aura already leaking into the air like poison gas.
And Crave.
He appears at the top of the stairs, Sloane at his side, both of them moving with that eerie synchronization the Heart Bind creates. His silver eyes find mine across the distance, and I feel his command snap into place.
“Secure the perimeter. Find the threat. Neutralize if hostile.” The order flows through me like wildfire, bypassing conscious thought and hooking straight into the part of me that exists only to obey my Alpha. My legs are moving before I register the decision, the lycan in me surging forward with purpose.
This… this is what I’m built for.
Not guilt. Not isolation. Not drowning in failure.
Action.
Protection.
Pack.
We fan out in practiced formation—Scorch taking point with his Dragonfire ready to ignite, me on his right flank with my claws extended, Dread phasing in and out of visibility as he scouts ahead.
The alarm is coming from the north gate. Hex’s security system is top-tier, laced with magic and technomancy that candetect everything from humans to demons to interdimensional rifts.
Whatever triggered itisn’tnormal.
And then I smell it.
Blood.
Fresh blood, human blood, so much of it, my lycan senses reel from the overwhelming scent.
